FBO Profile: Cunningham Aviation, Falcon Field Airport

If you ask someone what the busiest general aviation airports are in the U.S., you might expect answers such as Teterboro Airport in New Jersey or Centennial Airport in Colorado. But, for sheer numbers of airplanes going up and down, Falcon Field Airport (KFFZ) is among them. The Mesa, Arizona airport last year saw nearly half a million operations, mainly due to its high concentration of flight schools. These numbers rivaled some of the busier airline hubs.

Cunningham Aviation is now the only full-service FBO on the field after it purchased rival Avflight’s facility last year. In 2020, owner George Cunningham bought a dilapidated 30,000-sq-ft hangar, which once housed Hughes Helicopters’ (later McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing) assembly facility for the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. After a million-dollar renovation, the company began operations as a hangar keeper the following year, offering ground handling.

Cunningham’s decision to establish a full-service FBO came somewhat by accident as he soon noticed a sinkhole developing behind his hangar, which was determined to be the remains of an underground fuel farm, a vestige from the helicopter manufacturing era. “I looked at the cost to remove the old fuel tanks versus the cost to remove and install a brand new fuel system, and it was only a couple of hundred thousand dollars’ difference,” Cunningham told AIN. “I’ll just put in that new fuel farm and go into the fuel business.”

That decision put him in competition with the existing chain FBO on the field, and the matter was soon resolved. “Because it’s really not a two-FBO airport, we were knocking heads on price, and neither of us was making any money,” Cunningham explained. “It was more than a year of discussions and negotiations of whether they were going to buy us or we were going to buy them.”

In the end, Cunningham’s greater hangar space and the fact that he was planning a new major FBO development at KFFZ sealed the deal. “I was making money on my hangars and was going to be able to hang in there,” he said. “They really didn’t have that advantage, so we came to a very amicable and mutual agreement.”

Last August, Cunningham purchased the 3-year-old facility on the North side of the field. It features a 14,000-sq-ft terminal with a pilot lounge, three snooze rooms, shower facilities, a trio of conference rooms, and a flight planning area. That is in addition to the lobby area of its rebuilt 30,000-sq-ft hangar on the south side of the field, and its nearby 25-year-old, 2,500-sq-ft “line shack” that houses a separate pilot lounge.

Through the consolidation of the other FBO, Cunningham—a member of the Paragon Aviation Network—also acquired a 12,000-sq-ft hangar that can accommodate the latest ultra-long-range business jets. Combined, the FBO now offers 60,000 sq ft of hangar space, spread among its 25-acre leasehold at KFFZ.

That will change later this year when the company's new $14 million facility makes its debut on the south side of the field, near its existing original hangar. It will feature an additional 30,000-sq-ft hangar with 28-foot-high doors—bringing the FBO to 90,000 sq ft of space—and a 14,000-sq-ft two-story terminal. “That will become, pretty much, the nicest state-of-the-art FBO facility in the entire Southwest,” Cunningham said, adding that the facility will include an atrium lobby and amenities such as a sauna. After its opening, the company plans to continue to operate both facilities. “We lease out the hangar space so it will at least break even, and it’s convenient for people that want to come in through that side of the airport.”

There are 20 jets and 30 turboprops based at KFFZ, and Cunningham is home to 12 of them. While the flight training activity runs nonstop year-round (the city recently approved a landing fee measure, in an apparent effort to curb the activity), in the summer, when temperatures can reach 120 degrees in Mesa, the density altitude can prove an issue for jets. This led the airport to explore a 1,200-foot addition to its main runway 4R/22L to bring it to 6,300 feet.

Given all of the flight activity, the FBO sees a tremendous number of operations a day, though its fueling operations average under 20 gallons. “It’s very labor-intensive to put 18 gallons in a [Cessna] 172,” explained Cunningham. “It takes about as much time and as much labor as doing 1,500 gallons single point into a Gulfstream.” Still, that volume adds up, making it one of the few FBOs to pump more avgas than jet-A. It averages 125,000 gallons of the former each month, compared to 100,000 gallons of jet fuel.

To accomplish this, the Avfuel-branded company doubled its fuel capacity when it acquired the other FBO and now has 40,000 gallons of jet fuel and 45,000 of avgas combined in its two fuel farms. Its NATA Safety 1st-trained line technicians operate six avgas trucks, along with three jet tankers.

Open 24/7 to accommodate overnight aeromedical flights, the FBO has a staff of 25. “What we are striving for is to become a truly legitimate option other than Scottsdale [KSDL],” Cunningham stated. “If people come to Falcon Field, I want them to feel like they are being given the red carpet treatment.”

KFFZ has a unique history, starting off as a Royal Air Force training facility in 1941 with the intention of providing those pilots with good weather, wide open terrain, and a combat-free learning environment. Several thousand pilots graduated by the end of the war. The field was subsequently sold to the city for $1. Several WWII vintage hangars remain, but a violent storm a few years ago tore the wood roofs off of them. While they were repaired, Cunningham kept some of the original 1941 vintage lumber, which was fashioned into a conference table for the new FBO.